The Ultimate Guide to Using WhatsApp for Crisis Management

My mornings are pretty simple — I open my eyes, reach for my phone, respond to the dozen-odd messages on WhatsApp, look at some of the business ads I’ve received , very consciously ignore the “good morning” forwards in the family group, and get out of bed. Only then do I get on with my day.

And as an Indian, I’m not alone here. This is the typical morning routine for over 596 million people in the country — 83% of India uses WhatsApp for their daily communications (Backlinko, Grabon). Our friends in the UAE and other densely-populated markets use it just as intensely, where nearly eight out of ten people use WhatsApp on a daily basis (Go-Globe).

With such heavy usage in play, it makes sense that if there’s any place where key communication needs to happen, it’s on WhatsApp — especially for crisis management. The use of WhatsApp Business API in crisis management is more than just another tactic today — it’s a strategic imperative (fancy jargon for very very important). By building a direct, real-time communication channel with your end users and customers, you are able to bridge the trust gap very quickly whenever things go south.

A crisis doesn’t just mean something catastrophic like your intern shutting down the entire site by mistake (happens more often than you think). Sometimes, it can also be that your service business has equipment breakdowns, prompting you to send swift updates to customers about potential service delays.  Or let’s say your business is facing  unexpected logistical hindrances such as shortage of supplies or spares. , 

Or imagine this: you have a healthcare company or a medical institution. If there's a biohazard in your institution, you need to act quickly. Here’s how it would likely play out:

You send out a WhatsApp campaign to everyone sharing the critical information, communicating with your team, making sure the inpatients are okay, step by step process sent out as a WhatsApp broadcast, and clearing the area with everyone safe and secure.

Crisis management in healthcare is a matter of life and death, and WhatsApp can help you get over that bridge effectively.

With WhatsApp automation set up for crisis management, you would be able to minimize potential hazards, keep your customers/users informed of the current situation and limit any kind of damage to a minimum.

Read how Gallabox uses Gallabox to address customer support over WhatsApp

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In this article, we’re going to take a look at exactly how you can do this. We’ll cover how to use WhatsApp for crisis management, the benefits, some businesses who’ve killed it with maintaining brand loyalty using WhatsApp, the challenges with using WhatsApp for crisis management, and some strategies that you could deploy today— to make sure you’re all set for when things go down.

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But first, let’s take another look at why you should consider WhatsApp Business API for crisis management.

Why should I use WhatsApp Business for crisis management?

Your customers are already on WhatsApp

Like we mentioned earlier, most of the world already uses WhatsApp, and that includes your customers as well. So, any form of communication just happens a lot quicker — with better response probability  —  when you reach out to them on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp facilitates better, real-time communication

Instead of sending out a formal email (just like the hundreds of other business emails sitting in your customers’ spam folders), a WhatsApp broadcast helps customers actually get a real-time update on why things aren’t working, and encourages more natural interactions.

Watch Sumit talk about how their engagement rates skyrocketed from 1% via emails to over 40% on WhatsApp:

Customer testimonial | How Gallabox WhatsApp automation helps e-learning firm CurioEd - YouTube

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More automations at play

Can’t handle all your customer concerns at once? This is something that can get heavy very quickly, especially during times of crisis. With automated responses and chatbots, a good whatsapp business solution provider can take the burden off your shoulders to help you with focused  time to put out fires faster.

Key features of WhatsApp for crisis management?

One-click templates

One of the biggest PR concerns for a business is getting the message across right during times of crisis. A few mishaps in communication and all of a sudden you’ve got two fires to put out instead of one.

Why not set up a few pre-approved WhatsApp messages ahead of time, so when it comes to crisis management, you simply push out a templated broadcast, and then delegate the account to a bot or support staff based on the severity of the response?

With WhatsApp Business API tools like Gallabox, you’re able to set up pre-approved template messages to mitigate the damage before it even has a chance to catch on.

Templated messages can be:

• Highly customizable
• Paired with bots to tackle customer queries at scale
• Automated for faster customer reach outs.

Enable real-time two-way communication

Using WhatsApp for crisis management helps your support staff build valuable communication channels between the business and your customers. It encourages transparency and builds brand loyalty.

Case Studies and examples of crisis management on WhatsApp

If you think crisis management using WhatsApp Business could not possibly work out, there have been instances where WhatsApp has helped the Government of India keep spreading of misinformation down to a minimum using third party WhatsApp Business tools.

Gallabox has similar examples amongst its 10,000+ customer portfolio, where it helps companies stay ahead of the competition and provide proactive customer experiences through WhatsApp, especially during times of crisis.

Imagine seeing a 400% increase in productivity for your business, just because you automated a few routine workflows for your support agents. That’s what we did with PickYourTrail. Read the entire case study here.

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Benefits of using WhatsApp Business in crisis management

Real-time alerts and updates

WhatsApp broadcasts are almost instantaneous, making them one of the fastest ways to reach your customers. This comes handy in times of trouble, like when your product shipments might get delayed or server crashes might result in business downtimes. Keeping your customers updated in real-time helps them avoid panic as well.

Scalable customer support

With almost round-the-clock availability, and automated sequences and workflows in place, WhatsApp Business API tools (like Gallabox) can help provide extended customer experiences at a fraction of the cost of hiring support reps. They are also more scalable and geography-agnostic so it makes handling WhatsApp chatbots a lot easier.

Post-crisis recovery and bridging trust

Rebuilding trust is crucial in ensuring long term brand loyalty, and WhatsApp Business will play a big role in building a bridge towards this trust. Focusing on nurturing and damage recovery campaigns straight through WhatsApp will help improve customer experience and increase customer retention over the long run.

Watch how Gallabox uses Sequencing to make sure your messages reach people on time, everytime.

Ways to use WhatsApp Business in crisis management

Push real-time alerts on WhatsApp

One of the most common ways to use WhatsApp Business in Crisis Management is to push out real-time updates to your customers, stakeholders, teams, and everyone involved, and keep those scheduled updates going till the issue is resolved.

Misinformation control

To slow down brand damage and control the narrative, it is very important that we control misinformation that’s spread over the internet. This may start anywhere on the internet, but it really only catches steam on WhatsApp. A simple, verified chatbot can help mitigate reputation damage by answering valid queries for consumers in real-time.

Team coordination

Crisis response teams need to be in sync and on their toes at all times while managing a crisis. Having a singular control board from which different members can assign leads to themselves and talk to customers in real-time will help keep anxiety and panic in check, making for better decision making and coordination.

Strategies for implementing WhatsApp Business in crisis management

Set up templates

Preparation is half the battle. Create a set of pre-built messaging templates and build a complete Crisis-flow of sorts. If you’re using tools like Gallabox, this can be activated at the push of a button, and you’d be good to go.

Take a look at some of our ready-to-use WhatsApp templates here

Deploy automated chatbots

Create a chatbot to handle the volume of customer queries (which can get overwhelming very quickly). You could set one up with a few fixed answers and that would work too, but we’ve seen that having a mix of automated answers and then a flow that escalates the conversation to an agent works best for Crisis Management on WhatsApp.

Build a post-crisis recovery flow

Create a feedback and evaluation flow to understand customer experience during the crisis, and what you could’ve done better throughout the process. This will help the team get clarity on what’s working and identify areas of improvement.

Challenges of WhatsApp for crisis management

Message overload

When you’re using WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business for Crisis Management, things can get hectic really fast. If there’s no possible way for you to streamline your chats and delegate effectively, it will get overwhelming, and that’s one crisis you do not want to have. Dealing with the sheer volume of messages manually during a crisis is simply not sustainable.

Lack of centralized control

Monitoring communications through a central hub isn’t possible unless you’re using the WhatsApp Business Manager. Even then you would have to deal with rate limiting, and lack of CRM-based features.

In such cases, for crisis management, it wouldn’t really make sense if you’re using plain old WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business. Having a WhatsApp Business API tool is the ideal choice.

The future of crisis communication in today’s digital age

Today, transparency and authenticity play a more important role than ever before in bringing your business more business. With the internet and social media, product reviews, news, and customer feedback spread like wildfire, and when things go south, you want your customers in your corner.

But how exactly do you do that? The simplest answer is: by controlling the narrative. By keeping your customers updated and being open and transparent with them as and when things go down, you’re able to minimize damage to your brand. As a result, customers trust you more, and your business can get back up on its feet faster.

Watch Karthik Jagannathan talk about how businesses can connect instantly with their customers on WhatsApp

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WhatsApp Business for Crisis Management is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. Integrating AI and automation into the mix further helps you strengthen your grip on a crisis. More things in your control equals a better way to negate hindrance to customer experience.

Save yourself the trouble from a failed crisis management attempt, and get Gallabox for your crisis management team.

And just in case your annoying uncle hasn’t forwarded you a corny Good Morning gif on WhatsApp yet, here’s one from me.

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Gallabox for crisis management on WhatsApp Business

Gallabox is a WhatsApp Business API tool that helps you build a full-fledged communication and revenue generation system on WhatsApp.

Let’s face it, you’re on WhatsApp, and all your customers are on WhatsApp — why shouldn’t your crisis management happen where your customers are? With Gallabox, we make this possible.

Fully-functional automated chatbots, product catalogs, and collaboration solutions — all on top of WhatsApp’s intuitive interface.

Start a free trial today to learn more about our advanced WhatsApp solutions!

FAQs about WhatsApp for crisis management

1. Are there alternative platforms to WhatsApp that offer better privacy and security for crisis communication?

Two alternatives to WhatsApp stand out — Signal, and Telegram. Signal is an amazing tool, and a personal favourite. It has very strong end-to-end encryption, so you can be sure of your data being protected. The only problem is getting people to actually use Signal. Chances are that you are only  hearing about Signal, and that's its biggest problem. 

Telegram is very popular, but it isn’t trusted as a communication channel for your clients. It is well-regarded for its security, but can be seen as a less-professional channel for client communication.

WhatsApp is still the most widely-used and accepted channel for communication for users who like to connect with their customers where they are.

2. Can WhatsApp handle large-scale communication needs during a crisis, such as broadcasting messages to all employees simultaneously?

WhatsApp is built for scale. It can handle high volumes of communication, especially with its WhatsApp Business API. You’re able to access a lot of scalable functionalities like broadcasts, integrations, and delivery efficiency with the WhatsApp Business API. Add a tool like Gallabox on top of it, and you’re golden.

3.Are there legal or regulatory considerations when using WhatsApp for official crisis communications within an organization?

So crisis communication consists of a few key stages:  preparation, identification, response and communication, execution, resolution, and recovery. During each of these stages, you want to make sure to keep a strict check on the following:

• Data privacy
• Retention policies
• Security exposure
• Regulatory compliance.

These considerations of course change with industry and the nature of business you’re in, but making sure to stay within the legal confines of these factors will help make WhatsApp Business 

a healthy channel for crisis communications within and outside of your organization.